Transferring Beetles in a Mealworm Farm

In my Mealworm Farm I fill a single container with adult Darkling Beetles and allow them to mingle for a few weeks. That gives them time to lay thousands of eggs which will hatch and grow into Mealworms, at which point the Beetles need to be moved to another container to repeat the process.

My initial plan was to remove sources of moisture for the Beetles a few days before I wanted to move them, and then place carrots and potatoes inside to draw their thirst's attention. The hope was that they'd all climb onto the moisture filled vegetables and I'd be able to just move the food to the other container with the Beetles on it, but it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

I stumbled upon a more effective way of transferring the Beetles when I noticed that several of them would fall into little empty cups I placed in the container on a daily basis. To encourage this to work at max effectiveness, I placed the cup in one of the corners, piled the oatmeal bedding up to the lips of the cup, and tilted the entire container so that the corner with the cup was lower than all the others.

The result was a cup full of Beetles the next morning! Way easier than the other plan I had in mind...